Results from most races in last month’s primary election were certified Monday afternoon by the Westmoreland County Elections Board.
County commissioners, who serve as members of the board, signed off on the final official results from the key ballot races that saw Republicans and Democrats nominate candidates for governor, U.S. Senate and state House seats.
The board withheld a final certification for races to fill seats on the both political parties’ county committees as election officials said they will reschedule a meeting to cast lots later this week to break more than 250 ties. Democratic and Republican committee races will be certified after ties are broken, according to Scott Ross, director of the county’s information systems department that oversees elections.
The certifications close the books on the key primaries, including the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate that was effectively ended by the June 2 concession of Allegheny County businessman Dave McCormick. McCormick, according to statewide results, finished less than 1,000 votes behind top vote-getter Dr. Mehmet Oz.
Counties throughout Pennsylvania spent the past week recounting votes in that race.
In Westmoreland County, McCormick received seven additional votes as a result of the recount, while Oz received just one more vote.
With those additional votes, McCormick remained the top finisher among Westmoreland County Republicans, receiving 16,988. Oz received 16,720 votes.
Ross said Westmoreland elections officials added 18 additional votes to the Senate results from mail-in ballots cast in May.
“These were undercounted votes. Some had full names circled rather than filling in the ovals, and those wouldn’t have been (originally) counted,” Ross said.
The tie-breaking process for the county committee seats is the final piece to be resolved from the May primary.
Officials said that process is expected to take several hours to break ties in races for 157 Democratic and 177 Republican committee seats. Those tied races involved write-in candidates, according to the election bureau.
